My only issue is that they seem to have taken to the worst kinds of boss fights: Nothing but gimmicks and pass/fail mechanics (e.g. SBP, Tower of the Shattered's Metal Gear nonsense, tons of ground AOE). Now I didn't do the classic dungeons at launch, but the mechanics in them ranged from extremely simplistic (Maelow = Can you target switch? Caor Ashstone = DPS race, most bosses = Can you avoid AOE) to tricky (Konstantin, Ereetu in FLH, last guy in Abyssal Precipice). Almost every boss in SL is some kind of lame gimmick fight with one-shot mechanics.

The rep and grind for currency does seem like a bit much, but all MMOs have artificial gating.

Storm Legion is still good and all. Though personally I haven't been as interested in SL from an entertainment or intellectual POV to the same degree as classic Rift.

I barely logged in to rift the last 2-3 weeks. I am enourmously enjoying the secret world atm and playing a little bit of tera here and there with a friend.
i don't understand how a mmo keeps going from my favourite to an indifferent one in just a few weeks. makes me sad because i really liked classic rift.

Rift does a lot right. A few meh things, a couple of 'oh no' things and so on. As a whole the game isn't spectacular in one way or another; that is to say there is nothing about Rift outrageously broken or such a success that the weight of it's existence alone is fodder Monday through Sunday.

The only other MMO that comes to mind of this stripe is Lord of the Rings Online. Where the best one can say of the game is that it is a well made, solid game. The worst that it doesn't scratch their particular itch.

That is Rift-- a solid, well made and supported MMO in a traditional style.

Yeah - I must say, I tried this. I think it has to do with having ground clutter set too high, generally. Hoping they make some more optimizations to the graphics engine.

When a few hundred or so people are on the screen during a zone event boss, the ground cover is the first to vanish / flash.

I've noticed the same. Raising settings manually makes ground clutter like grass flash in and out like crazy. Setting it to Ultra preset, the flashing stops for grass, though I still notice a LOT of rocks and cliffs in SL flicker. It's not GeForce overheating like was suggested on the first page, I have a Radeon. It's not overheating at all, the rest of the game works fine and it happens no matter how long I've been in game. I just updated my drivers, but they were from November, so it's possible that'll fix it, though I find it unlikely.

Originally Posted by Drunkenvalley

Every word I read of that post has your credibility plummeting like a hooker getting a suitcase full of money for a BJ.

Good fight, but omg... I'd rather not spend 15 minutes killing a chunk of leg armor. >_>

---------- Post added 2013-01-21 at 01:35 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Lypo

I've noticed the same. Raising settings manually makes ground clutter like grass flash in and out like crazy. Setting it to Ultra preset, the flashing stops for grass, though I still notice a LOT of rocks and cliffs in SL flicker. It's not GeForce overheating like was suggested on the first page, I have a Radeon. It's not overheating at all, the rest of the game works fine and it happens no matter how long I've been in game. I just updated my drivers, but they were from November, so it's possible that'll fix it, though I find it unlikely.

I don't know who has this problem, but for me it was driver update being needed for Storm Legion, specifically, essentially.

I have mixed feelings for this expansion. Trion knows how do some good end game content, no one can argue that. However, the grind is insane. I am not going to lie but I haven't played another game besides RIFT after I decided to try to get the rep grinding done, or the Infinity Shards done, or the stupid dungeon hit cap grind done. IT IS probably the worst feature for this game for me at the moment.

I have mixed feelings for this expansion. Trion knows how do some good end game content, no one can argue that. However, the grind is insane. I am not going to lie but I haven't played another game besides RIFT after I decided to try to get the rep grinding done, or the Infinity Shards done, or the stupid dungeon hit cap grind done. IT IS probably the worst feature for this game for me at the moment.

It really is bad, however, after I realized how bad it was going to be shortly after hitting 60, I looked at it differently than all my guildies. They were all calculating how many days it would take doing just dailies or how many IAs they would have to do. They were figuring out how many IS they needed and were getting overwhelmed. I stepped back and decided, oh well, I'll buy the IS stuff if/when I can, if not I'll skip it and run Experts and get my gear that way. For Rep, I decided, on days that I can run the dailies I will, if I don't have time oh well. IA bores me to death and there are normally not too many others doing it anymore. I'll take my time and I'll get it when I get it. It's a whole new expansion, we were more than likely not meant to have all this stuff right away, I'll get it when I get to it. Until then, I'll just poke away at my own pace.

How are people amased by the grind inn SL? When I still played Rift, it was easy to see even for newcomer that PvP grind and Rep grinds would take 4-ever, along other currency grinds. Rift is extremly grind, even more than what wow TBC was, or MOP daylies crap imo.

In classic Rift, PVE rep grind was pretty minor. The worst of which was Stillmoor rep-- and only if you didn't raid. Otherwise, you were done with all 3 major reps in classic Rift is less than a week. Ember Isle rep was pretty easy too. Mostly due to the sheer volume of events and time one spent in EI.

The only currency grind in classic Rift I think was burdensome was open world ISS grind for gear. Though that could be augmented in a number of ways because you had dungeons, EI, 10s and 20s to fill in whatever. It was even easier/faster when Trion added the upgrade system.

Guildies would hit 50 in classic within /played 24 hours, craft a hit set, support 1 or 2 raids the same day they capped 50 and be BiS within a month on whatever alt they desired.

Nothing in classic Rift was too great a grind or burden. Classic Rift was fast- fast to level, fast to gear, fast to raid, etc.

In SL, PVE is a little more drawn out. Well. Everything in SL takes just slightly too long.